Male Partners' Involvement Towards Prenatal Screening and Diagnostic Testing for Down Syndrome

Introduction: Now, male partners' involvement in prenatal screening and diagnostic testing for Down syndrome is becoming increasingly recognized as well to ensure that parents are well informed of the risks and benefits of screening. The aim of study was to understand the degree of male partners' involvement during pregnancy in Singapore population. Methods: A cross-sectional survey of male partners' attending prenatal counseling was performed. The instrument used to measure the level of involvement is a self-assessment questionnaire that identifies the role of male partners with a Likert scale. Descriptive statistics was used to analyze data gained. Result: A total of 107 participants completed the questionnaire. Sixty-seven percent of male partners were found to have a highlevel of involvement while 32.7% was found to have a medium level of involvement. Most of them stated that women can pursue prenatal testing without their permission. Male partners found it more important for them to accompany their spouse to amniocentesis or CVS than to the Down syndrome screening test. When participants were asked about how much information about Down syndrome they sought prior to the appointment, how much discussion they had with their spouse about Down syndrome testing, and about whether they or their spouse should be the first person to receive test results, most stated that they were undecided. Conclusion: These results revealed that male partners were very well involved in the Down syndrome testing during pregnancy and future studies should assess possible underlying factors that influence male partners' involvement

Scope assignment: From wh- to QR

This paper develops a theory of scope assignment to wh-phrases as resulting of a process of selective spell-out of copies created from Internal Merge. We show that so-called LF-movement is not a viable option in the current theory of grammar. We therefore pursue the idea that all movement is 'overt 'and this, taken in conjunction with a tripartite structure for question formation (involving a clause-typing interrogative C, a Q particle, and a wh-phrase) yields a transparent, syntactically driven theory of scope which we then extend, more speculatively to Quantifier Raising in general

A Sub-Type of Familial Pancreatic Cancer: Evidence and Implications of Loss-of-Function Polymorphisms in Indoleamine-2,3-Dioxygenase-2.

BACKGROUND: Variation in an individual\u27s genetic status can impact the development of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma; however, the majority of familial pancreatic cancers (FPC) cannot yet be attributed to a specific inherited mutation. We present data suggesting a correlation between loss-of-function single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in an immune regulator gene, indoleamine-2,3-dioxygenase-2 (IDO2), and an increased risk of FPC. STUDY DESIGN: Germline DNA from patients who underwent resection for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (n = 79) was sequenced for the IDO2 SNPs R248W and Y359Stop. Genotypes resulting in inactivation of IDO2 (Y325X homozygous, R248W homozygous) were labeled as homozygous, and the other genotypes were grouped as wild-type or heterozygous. Genotype distributions of each SNP were analyzed for Hardy-Weinberg deviation. A genotype frequency set from the 1000 Genomes Project (n = 99) was used as a genetic control for genotype distribution comparisons. RESULTS: A significant 2-fold increase in the overall prevalence of the Y359Stop homozygous genotype compared with the expected Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium was noted (p \u3c 0.05). Familial pancreatic cancer was noted in 15 cases (19%) and comparison of the FPC cohort set to the genetic control set showed a 3-fold increase in Y359Stop homozygous rates (p = 0.054). Overall in our cohort, the homozygous genotype group was associated with increased risk of FPC (odds ratio 5.4; 95% CI 1.6 to 17.6; p \u3c 0.01). Sex, age at diagnosis, and history of tobacco use were not found to be significantly associated with FPC. CONCLUSIONS: Our preliminary data suggest a strong association between the IDO2 inactivating Y359Stop SNP and an increased risk of FPC when compared with the control group. Future studies will evaluate the value of IDO2 genotyping as a prognostic, early detection marker for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma and a predictive marker for novel immune checkpoint therapies

Challenging Existing Perspectives of “Ideal” Characteristics of Teachers of English

Addressing their concern about status inequalities among teachers of English, in this viewpoint paper, the authors argue that characteristics related to association with an Inner Circle country, Caucasian appearance, middle and upper class socio-economic status and university education seem to be related to the image of the “ideal” teacher of English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL). This image, in turn, affects job prospects, salary and recognition by students and peers. By reflecting on their experiences in relation to how well they fit the “ideal”, the authors show that the construct is highly flawed and potentially destructive and divisive. To redress the inequities brought about by perceptions of the “ideal” language teacher, strategies pertaining to providing role models, raising awareness, providing tools and techniques for improving proficiency, and discussing status and identity issues are suggested for assigning competence to people who do not fit the idealized image. The article aims to offer a fairly new perspective from the unique experiences of three established language teachers, one from each of Kachru’s (1992) circles, and to also raise awareness about the need to accept greater diversity among language teaching professionals. Keywords: teacher identity, teacher characteristics, teacher employment, NNESTs, non-native teachers of English, assigning competence, narrative enquir

Challenging existing perspectives about the "ideal" characteristics of teachers of English

Addressing their concern about status inequalities among teachers of English, in this viewpoint paper, the authors argue that characteristics related to association with an Inner Circle country, Caucasian appearance, middle and upper class socio-economic status and university education seem to be related to the image of the “ideal” teacher of English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL). This image, in turn, affects job prospects, salary and recognition by students and peers. By reflecting on their experiences in relation to how well they fit the “ideal”, the authors show that the construct is highly flawed and potentially destructive and divisive. To redress the inequities brought about by perceptions of the “ideal” language teacher, strategies are suggested for assigning competence to people who do not fit the idealized image. The article aims to offer a fairly new perspective from the unique experiences of three established language teachers and to also raise awareness about the need to accept greater diversity among language teaching professionals

Challenging Existing Perspectives of “Ideal” Characteristics of Teachers of English

Addressing their concern about status inequalities among teachers of English, in this viewpoint paper, the authors argue that characteristics related to association with an Inner Circle country, Caucasian appearance, middle and upper class socio-economic status and university education seem to be related to the image of the “ideal” teacher of English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL). This image, in turn, affects job prospects, salary and recognition by students and peers. By reflecting on their experiences in relation to how well they fit the “ideal”, the authors show that the construct is highly flawed and potentially destructive and divisive. To redress the inequities brought about by perceptions of the “ideal” language teacher, strategies pertaining to providing role models, raising awareness, providing tools and techniques for improving proficiency, and discussing status and identity issues are suggested for assigning competence to people who do not fit the idealized image. The article aims to offer a fairly new perspective from the unique experiences of three established language teachers, one from each of Kachru\u27s (1992) circles, and to also raise awareness about the need to accept greater diversity among language teaching professionals. Keywords: teacher identity, teacher characteristics, teacher employment, NNESTs, non-native teachers of English, assigning competence, narrative enquir

An enhanced CRISPR repressor for targeted mammalian gene regulation.

The RNA-guided endonuclease Cas9 can be converted into a programmable transcriptional repressor, but inefficiencies in target-gene silencing have limited its utility. Here we describe an improved Cas9 repressor based on the C-terminal fusion of a rationally designed bipartite repressor domain, KRAB-MeCP2, to nuclease-dead Cas9. We demonstrate the system's superiority in silencing coding and noncoding genes, simultaneously repressing a series of target genes, improving the results of single and dual guide RNA library screens, and enabling new architectures of synthetic genetic circuits

Measuring oral health during pregnancy: Sensitivity and specificity of a maternal oral screening (MOS) tool

Background: Being the parent of a severely injured child involves many stressors throughout the trauma journey. Internationally, little is known about the experiences or levels of emotional distress, parenting stress, quality of life, and resilience for parents of injured children. The aim of this study is to investigate the experiences, unmet needs and outcomes of parents of physically injured children 0–12 years over the 2 year period following injury. Methods/design: This is a prospective longitudinal study using an embedded mixed methods design. This design has a primary qualitative strand which incorporates supplementary quantitative data on child quality of life, and parental quality of life, parenting stress, emotional distress, and resilience at four time points; the acute hospitalisation phase, and at 6, 12 and 24 months following injury. The primary sample are parents of injured children 0–12 years hospitalised in the Australian states of New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and South Australia. Primary data sources are child and parent demographic data; survey data; and semi-structured interview data across a 24 month period. Discussion: This study aims to address the existing gap in knowledge on the experiences and unmet support needs of parents in the 2 years following child injury to provide guidance for care provision for these families. There is a lack of evidence-based recommendations for supporting parents and families of injured children and strengthening their capacity to address the challenges they face

Low cement/fly ash blends for modification of Crushed Rock Base material

Crushed Rock Base (CRB) material sometimes needs to be modified typically due to the moisture susceptibility. Resilient modulus is the dominant design parameter of unbound materials and should be high enough to avoid distress or failure of a pavement. In Western Australia (WA), some modification methods such as dry-back or Hydrated Cement Treated Crushed Rock Base (HCTCRB) have been implemented in trial sections of pavements. But they could not provide the desired performances by poor drainability or widely-spaced open cracks in surface of thin bituminous pavements. As such, this paper attempts to review the challenges of each method and show how design requirements can be provided by another option so-called low cement/fly ash blends even in saturated conditions. This method covers the deficiencies of two previous methods in terms of cracking or moisture susceptibility as observed in limited field tests. Series of laboratory tests including uniaxial compression strength, resilient modulus, tube suction and shrinkage tests are undertaken to explore the key features of this modification method. Typical results indicated that resilient modulus improved two times while strength, shrinkage and capillary rise of this material are in the acceptable level